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Television Media

The Programmer Who Could Save Tivo 371

Posted by CmdrTaco from the didn't-know-it-needed-saving dept.
Damon Darlin from Business 2.0 writes "We just posted a story on Arthur Van Hoff, the programming legend who now works at TiVo. He was one of the Java geniuses at Sun (has almost as many patents as Bill Joy) and started Strangeberry, which Tivo bought in January. the story tells how his Strangeberry software will be given away to developers of web content. The next generation Tivos will then be able to recognize web content and direct it to the appropriate home device. This could be the stuff that saves tivo because none of the set top boxes will have this ability.
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The Programmer Who Could Save Tivo More

The Programmer Who Could Save Tivo

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  • Nice Feature, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Klar ( 522420 ) * <curchin@gmail . c om> on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @11:56AM (#10002386) Homepage Journal
    The next generation Tivos will then be able to recognize web content and direct it to the appropriate home device. This could be the stuff that saves tivo because none of the set top boxes will have this ability.
    While this is a cool feature, I'm not sure if it alone will be able to save Tivo. There are so many cheaper alternatives, and I'm sure they will be able to add a similar feature in too. Personally when I'm watching TV(which I almost never have time for as of late), I don't wanna be reading stuff online, I just want to relax and watch a movie or show.

    • Why not publish a SDK (Score:5, Insightful)

      by ron_ivi ( 607351 ) <sdotno@cheapcomp ... m ['ces' in gap]> on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:08PM (#10002552)
      If they'd publish a SDK and you'll have *millions* of programmers saving Tivo, instead of just one.
    • The key here is: "More features != better product"

    • Re:Nice Feature, but.. (Score:4, Insightful)

      by garcia ( 6573 ) * on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:15PM (#10002630)
      While this is a cool feature, I'm not sure if it alone will be able to save Tivo. There are so many cheaper alternatives, and I'm sure they will be able to add a similar feature in too. Personally when I'm watching TV(which I almost never have time for as of late), I don't wanna be reading stuff online, I just want to relax and watch a movie or show.

      What would save Tivo would be cheaper hardware, cheaper lifetime subcriptions or no subscriptions at all, and the ability for third party add-ons (hardware or software).

      You don't want to surf and watch TV at the same time but others do. Some people want a MP3/Video collection manager on their TV. Let them do it.

      Enough of this "we want more, more, more, money" shit and more of "we want more, more, more, customers" shit :)
      • Some people want a MP3/Video collection manager on their TV. Let them do it.
        Actually, TiVo already supports playing MP3s over the home network. As for videos, you must have different friends than I do, since I haven't really seen any clamor for that functionality.

      • Re:Nice Feature, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Aardpig ( 622459 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:42PM (#10002948)

        You don't want to surf and watch TV at the same time but others do. Some people want a MP3/Video collection manager on their TV. Let them do it.

        I already access my videos and MP3s (actually, OGGs) via MythTV [mythtv.org]. On top of that, I check the weather, get news headlines, and play games. I can also schedule programs from halfway around the world, via the web interface.

        On top of all this, MythTV is free free. I'm not sure what would ever convince me to switch to TiVO or a similarly-limited product.

        • Re:Nice Feature, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)

          by jargoone ( 166102 ) * on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:51PM (#10003067)
          Of the things you list MythTV can do, the only thing I can't do on my TiVo(s) is play games (and that is if you ignore the lame tic-tac-toe that comes with JavaHMO).

          On top of all this, MythTV is free free. I'm not sure what would ever convince me to switch to TiVO or a similarly-limited product.

          A house? A wife? Kids? Things that take up time you can spend on hacking to get the thing to work?

          I'm not saying the above do not apply to you, but they do for some.

          My TiVo just works. I have three of them, and have for several years, and it's never crashed ONCE. I screw around with computers enough at work; when I want to watch TV, I just want to watch TV.

          • Re:Nice Feature, but.. (Score:5, Informative)

            by LinuxHam ( 52232 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @02:02PM (#10003947) Homepage Journal
            If you ever decide to drop your TiVO subscription and centralize your capture efforts and media collection, MythTV is really the way to go. I, too, have gone through the nightmare of trying to get it to work. BUT -- someone has made a working Knoppix-based Myth installer, called KnoppMyth. You boot up raw hardware (no OS needed) off this CD and it takes it from there. Basically converts any PC with a tv capture card and s-video out into a tricked out no-sub TiVO. Try it sometime. You might be impressed.

            • I got moderated into oblivion for saying this last (Score:5, Insightful)

              by tgd ( 2822 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @03:16PM (#10004861)
              tivo story, but its still as true now as a week ago.

              MythTV is a nightmare to set up, and there's no company out there that I can buy a pre-configured one from. KnoppMyth may work if you have a certain set of hardware, but my time is far too valuable to spend a week researching the right hardware, buying $500 or $1000 worth of computing equipment and a case suitable for going in my living room, and blowing a day setting it all up.

              If I could buy a decent looking unit that I plugged in and works, then I'd buy one. Until then, I've outgrown the need to blow days at a time playing with that sort of stuff. I enjoy it sometimes, but I'm just plain too busy.

              At $100 for a Tivo, thats maybe an hour or two worth of my time. Hard to compete with that.

              • Price point comparisons (Score:3, Informative)

                by fizbin ( 2046 )
                Having looked into this a little bit, it appears that the cheapest decent PVR box constructable with retail components and MythTV is still going to run you around $250 plus labor to assemble and install. Compare this to $270 for an 80-hour Tivo, with a $100 mail-in rebate.

                Now, with Tivo there is still the subscription price, but the best bet economically would be to go with Tivo. (or other commercial PVR) Of course, if you have many of the expensive components for a PVR already lying around and assemble
              • Just to keep the facts straight, I spent $500, did absolutely zero research, dug up a dusty old Hauppauge WinTV PCI card, and it "just worked" (TM). Only after that did I spend time trying to get it working by hand because I wanted to know how it worked. Nothing about days or weeks spent setting it up. Just boot up, choose the option to reformat and install on the PC, let it install, enter my zip code, choose my cable provider, and I had a PVR in 30 minutes that also had news headlines and a local weather r
          • There are those of us to whom Tivo is unavailable. For example, I live in Canada and am unable to get a Tivo. I would if I could, but they don't sell up here.

            Enter MythTV. Although I haven't built one yet, it's only because I was busy getting married this summer. However, MythTV appears to have a very high spouse approval factor, in that next year I do plan on building one. And the wife is not only ok with it, she's encouraging me to just go for it.

    • Re:Nice Feature, but.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MarsDefenseMinister ( 738128 ) <dallapieta80@gmail.com> on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:18PM (#10002662) Homepage Journal
      TiVo is $99 now. There's no reason for a geek not to have one. I paid $400 for mine, and it is worth every penny.

      • Re:Nice Feature, but.. (Score:5, Informative)

        by shokk ( 187512 ) <ernieoporto.yahoo@com> on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @01:46PM (#10003758) Homepage Journal
        Paid $600 total for my 20 hour TiVo two years ago:
        $200 for the TiVo itself,
        $100 per 80 GB hard drive (2 of them)
        $200 for the lifetime subscription

        Everyone forgets to factor in that subscription cost. Had I gone with the recurring monthly fee, I would have paid $110 more than the above by now. I expect to have my series 1 TiVo for at least another two years. I figure by then I will be convinced by new features to spring for a new one. Now the new TiVos are $99 each, but I would still have to get another subscription to support it, and that is what keeps me from doing it. Were that fee 1/2 of what it is now, I feel many people would trample their friends to get a TiVo in the house.

    • IMDB integration? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by swb ( 14022 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:18PM (#10002665)
      Since many are hooked to the internet 24/7, I'd love to see IMDB integration with Tivo -- have the details screen for a program show you an IMDB page (or IMDB data) for the given movie, with the ability to browse around and then pick selections for future wishlists, etc.

      • Re:IMDB integration? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by forgoil ( 104808 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:36PM (#10002876) Homepage
        Should also have a connection to www.tvtome.com then, since a lot of the material on TV is infact TV series.

        But then again, I prefer channel Internet. No commercials, watch on demand, and better quality that the shity cable... And then I usually have access to Firefox.

        Maybe it's better to spend the money on a plasma to begin with, hooks up to the PC easily :))
    • Personally for me, just making my tv/cable box/dvr able to quickly pull up IMDB pages or info would be a killer ap. I don't want to surf persay but I'm always trying to remember an actor, director, etc. & what else I've seen them in or whatever and I either run to the computer & search IMDB or try to remember it later (and usually don't).

    • Re:Nice Feature, but.. (Score:3, Informative)

      by dfj225 ( 587560 )
      I'm not so sure they necessarily meant web content as in web pages but more online resources. For example, they mention being able to pull a movie from a Netflix like website and view it whenever you please, the same could be done for other online videos or news sources. At least, this is what I hope they mean. I don't want to read any websites while watching something either. I think what really needs to happen first is for more publishers to put good content online, then devices like TiVo can make the

  • Stupid question... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Agent Green ( 231202 ) * on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @11:56AM (#10002396)
    ...how does TiVo get saved when they're really the only viable PVR in the mass consumer market?

    • Re:Stupid question... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by telstar ( 236404 )
      WAKE UP! Virtually every major cable-TV player is getting into the game. 5 years from now I imagine you'll have a challenge trying to find a new standard cablebox that doesn't have TiVo-like features.

      • Re:Stupid question... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Morgahastu ( 522162 ) <bshel ... fave bands name> on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:19PM (#10002669) Journal
        Except they are all terrible. I have a Scientific Atlanta PVR and it hurts me to have to use it.

        Tivo already has a great device, they just need to convince cable companies to bundle them instead of crappy knock-offs.
    • I agree. The entire industry can't really take you over without you fucking up a lot, when everything else is considered a "TiVo clone". Being the de facto standard and having years on the other people means you need saving?

  • patents != genius (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @11:57AM (#10002400)
    come on now, don't we know better than to gauge the intellectual capacity of someone by how many patents they hold?

    • Re:patents != genius (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:00PM (#10002447)
      And how many patents do you possess?

      The defense rests, your honor.

    • Re:patents != genius (Score:3, Insightful)

      by forgoil ( 104808 )
      We can figure out how much we like someone though, just use a simple formula:

      if(someone.patents.software > 0)
      EngageMode(EHate);
      else
      EngageMode(ELike);

      Besides, I wouldn't use the word genius about anyone who was involved in making java. I don't see what is so horribly hard about making a horrible combination of Obj-C and Smalltalk, two far better languages.

  • TiVo isn't dying (Score:5, Informative)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @11:58AM (#10002419) Homepage Journal
    Yeah, they were doing poorly, but have enough subscribers that they have a decent revenue stream. In fact, on the second page they even explain this. So this guy isn't 'saving TiVo', he's simply trying to make it enormous.

    • Yahoo confirms, TIVO is dying ... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      were doing poorly ???
      Try ARE doing poorly.
      5 year stock price chart [yahoo.com]

      Salient fact about TIVO : TIVO loses money. Decent revenue stream you say? Continual loses for an easy-to-clone product from an aging Silicon Valley company is bad news. A programmer from Strangeberry who invented Java is not going to save TIVO. Did Java save sun ?

  • Tivo and patents (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GGardner ( 97375 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @11:59AM (#10002438)
    We all know about all the stupid patents out there. But isn't Tivo an example of a company that can/should have been saved by the patent system? Tivo had a great idea, were the first to market (I think?), but now are being killed by copy-cats.

    Isn't the fact that Tivo can't (or didn't) get patent protection for its business just as strong an indictment of the patent system as all the lame patents we complain about?

    • Re:Tivo and patents (Score:3, Insightful)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      TiVo has a shitload of patents on it's interface and phone-home methods and whatnot.

      You cant patent "device for recording TV digitally", since those devices have existed since the 50s. You can only patent the method. Someone else can come up with a different method (different looking interface and remote, maybe even a less invasive phone-home spying scheme).

    • Isn't the fact that Tivo can't (or didn't) get patent protection for its business just as strong an indictment of the patent system as all the lame patents we complain about?

      No. The purpose of patents isn't to protect businesses, the purpose is to promote and encourage inventors to share ideas and research rather than keep them to themselves. The incentive to share is in allowing them to recoup some of their efforts from license fees.

      The mere fact that Tivo was first does not in any way entitle them

      • Re:Tivo and patents (Score:3, Interesting)

        by pauljlucas ( 529435 )

        The purpose of patents isn't to protect businesses, the purpose is to promote and encourage inventors to share ideas and research rather than keep them to themselves.

        No. The sole purpose of a patent is "... the right to exlude others from making, using or selling the invention throughout the United States of America ..." That's a direct quote from one of the patent plaques hanging on my wall.

        Does a patent force you to disclose your idea? Of course: it's required. But that's not its purpose. Far mo

        • the right to exlude others from making, using or selling the invention

          No, that is merely a means to achieve the purpose I stated. Patents were not invented to merely formalise a 'natural' right exclude others from using your inventions. Patents were recognised to be an artificial construct (and a rather questionable one at that), in which these rights are granted not for your personal benefit, but for the benefit of society as a whole (by encouraging you to share your ideas).

          Does a patent force you

  • Nice... (Score:2, Informative)

    by Sv-Manowar ( 772313 )
    But competition is coming on strong, with each of the major cable/sattelite providers trying to get in on a market untappedd by tivo (uk) and moving into it's territory (US) i wonder how long Tivo can stay number 1

  • To *really* fix tivo... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by raygundan ( 16760 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:02PM (#10002474) Homepage
    He needs to get into the DirecTV DVR code and figure out why it takes 30 seconds to display the guide, a minute to open your "Now Playing" list of shows, and 5+ minutes to sort a 30-entry list of season passes.

    A huge fraction of Tivo's subscriber base is through the DirecTV tivos-- and despite my great experience with the standalone unit I had, the DirecTV box is so much slower despite 4x the processor speed that I can't even imagine what sort of horrible code is in there. Optimize the UI, *then* add features. DirecTV may singlehandedly turn millions of people away from tivo after they sign up and have a truly subpar experience with it.

    • Re:To *really* fix tivo... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Fulcrum of Evil ( 560260 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:08PM (#10002551)

      He needs to get into the DirecTV DVR code and figure out why it takes 30 seconds to display the guide, a minute to open your "Now Playing" list of shows, and 5+ minutes to sort a 30-entry list of season passes.

      That sounds like a job for ... ME! Are you listening, Tivo? You already have my resume.

      • Honestly, it sounds like a job for a first-year CS student. DirecTV has really bungled the Tivo software somehow. How long can it possibly take to reorganize a list of 30 entries? Or to read the guide database and print out 10 entries at a time? And if the backend stuff takes so long, why doesn't it get done in the background while the user goes back to watching TV? Even if there is a good reason that reordering your season passes takes 10 minutes, the UI should return control to the user and chug away

        • I bet they use Bogosort :)

          And if you would like to know what that is, check this out:

          Bogosort [thefreedictionary.com]

          And if you don't get the joke after reading that, well, congratulations to getting paid for writing the code for DirecTV DVR:)

      • Re:To *really* fix tivo... (Score:5, Funny)

        by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:57PM (#10003162) Journal
        That sounds like a job for ... ME! Are you listening, Tivo? You already have my resume.

        You want to put Windows ME on Tivos?

        ...my god, that's so crazy IT JUST MIGHT WORK!!!!

    • Exactly. Since getting DirectTV in January, the amount of TV I watch has plummetted to virtually nothing. You can't channel flip when it takes fifteen seconds for the channel to change. The DirectTV Tivo doesn't even work right. The only thing it has ever recorded for me randomly are Spanish language movies, no matter how many thumbs down I give it. Several times, it has flat out not recorded items I told it to. Frequently, it records from channels I don't even get and then auto-deletes the recording
      • I don't get it. I've used DirecTivo plenty of times at my friend's house and it always works much better - meaning faster and more reliable channel switching, better picture quality, etc. - than regular Tivo + digital cable box, in my experience (which is what I currently have). In fact, I had a DirecTivo box for a few months in my old apartment where I had DTV satellite exposure and could mount a dish, and it was great in my experience. Maybe you just have a defective box?
        • I'd agree with Fnkmaster on this. I've had my DirecTivo for about 3 years now, and none of those problems.

          It can take up to a minute to load up the Now Showing screen, but as my TiVo has been hacked and has 147+ hours of programming recorded, I can appreciate that the original developers didn't expect to have to list so much content :)

          • Honestly, how long can it possibly take to sort 300 shows? It's just three hundred! I have a crappy java program here at work that sorts lists of thousands faster than you can say "I hate my tivo."

            I would expect 300 shows to take longer than 20, but I'd expect 20 to take about 1/10 of a second. What can possibly be taking so long for the tivo to do?

            Another question-- why are some people's boxes worse than others? Mine is slow, yours is not as slow, another poster says he's got no issue at all. A good

      • Defensive Blogging (Score:5, Interesting)

        by laetus ( 45131 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:32PM (#10002825)
        Stipe42, you may be right, but I have to wonder sometimes if comments like yours are, for lack of a better word, defensive blogging by marketing people.

        You know, someone paid to sit around all day and defend a company's product online in high-profile blogs and review sites like Slashdot, using legitimate user profiles (or in this case, maybe as a marketroid for cable companies looking to slam DirectTV).

        Does anyone know if "defensive blogging" happens? I googled for pages on this topic but couldn't find any stories about it, but I'm sure it happens.

    • Re:To *really* fix tivo... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Siniset ( 615925 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:15PM (#10002628) Homepage Journal
      Direct TV is slow just on it's own. My parents had direct TV (got it after I went off to college, the bastards!) and the guide was always slow. So my guess is it's not the TIVO software, but the direct TV software. It probably has something to do with the fact that it's through a satellite uplink rather than cable. Perhaps everytime you try to access the guide, it tries to download it, rather than updating the guide periodically? My parents now have digital cable, and the guide functions work a hell of a lot faster now.
    • It even gets worse than that... on some DTivos, if you don't call in often enough and let the drive get filled with shows, it will slow down the machine to near unusability.

      I had this happen, and it would take 5 minutes to bring up the list of recorded shows and hours to reorder the season passes. Now THAT is shitty programming. The tech support said there were only two ways to fix it: either wipe the drive clean or go through the process of deleting shows manually (10 minutes to do per show).

      I can't un

    • You can fix the EPG slowness now (Score:5, Informative)

      by hirschma ( 187820 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:25PM (#10002748)
      Change the channel guide like this:

      * Go to your guide,
      * Hit the "info" button on your remote,
      * Change the style from DirecTV grid to Tivo Live Guide.

      The Tivo style guide is better (IMO) and super fast. I'm guessing that they had to include the DirecTV grid for some contractual reason, but really want to folks to use their EPG.

      Jonathan
      • I don't want to think about how slow it would be back with the default DirecTV guide. It may be faster, but it's still slower than molasses.
        • I have an original Series 1 TiVo, and it's been incredibly slow for some time - the only thing that sped it up was deleting a huge number of season passes. I find it hard to work out why it's so incredibly slow - I suspect really bad database design, indexing and/or in-memory algorithms, as the amount of data it has to search is not that enormous. Intelligent algorithms and on-disk indexes should make it go a lot more quickly...

  • This has been tried before (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Myself ( 57572 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:05PM (#10002517) Journal
    Isn't this the same sort of hyperconsumerist thinking that drove :DigitalConvergence into the ditch too? The makers of the :CueCat also had a cable, which connected one's TV audio output to one's soundcard input, and software to recognize "cues" in the audio, which would then pull up the appropriate page on the computer.

    People won't flock to a technology because it infests their computer with all the same advertising they see on TV. People will run screaming the other way, but grab the nifty hardware on the way out.
    • That device was stupid for so many reasons. First of all, most TVs dont have a line level audio out. And the ones that do, when you connect to it, disables the TVs internal speakers. So now you can't hear TV unless you redirect it through those cheapass lil speakers on your computer desk.

      All so you can put ads for the same products being advertised on TV on the screen...

      What was the thing where they'd broadcast URLs with the programming? I remember WebTV for windows could snag those URLs, and I though
  • Media extenders (for XBox or standalone), which is supposed to ship this Christmas season, will allow this in conjuntion with a Windows Media Center.

  • How about this generation (Score:5, Insightful)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:12PM (#10002594) Journal
    of Tivos knowing when it's on a channel that is showing nothing or one I'm not subscribed for, *And Not Recording It*?

    And an easy way of deleting channels - with a thumbnail that shows what's on it?

    And the prevention of third parties removing all sorts of useful features like home media option, networking, ect. (DirectTV, you dirty SOBs).

    Admittedly, these are the big 3 things that annoy me about my Tivo - I don't know if they are common to standalones, but IMHO DirectTV has really wrecked something good

    • "knowing when it's on a channel that is showing nothing or one I'm not subscribed for, *And Not Recording It*?"

      "an easy way of deleting channels"

      Standalone TiVos do these with ease. I guess you'll have to complain to DirecTV about these issues.

  • More /. advertising? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sczimme ( 603413 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:13PM (#10002606)

    Damon Darlin from Business 2.0 writes "We just posted a story on...

    Wow - I guess advertisements no longer need to be camouflaged at all.
  • Excellent, I can stream to my computer, and using the other technology meant to enable connection of computers beyond the computer world, send the information via bluetooth to my fridge with the tv mounted in it.

  • TiVo is a victim (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mhollis ( 727905 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:14PM (#10002619) Journal

    of their own success. Basically, TiVo replaces a standard VCR, only more effectively. It can record shows while playing back, it can let you skip commercials more effectively than a VCR and it's a cool device.

    But a "generic TiVo" leased from cable and satellite television companies does the same thing exactly. They all enhance the television viewing experience with high-quality instant playback for "timeshifting." What none of these devices do is allow you to permanently record television in a removable device.

    Want to (temporarily) save TiVo? Add a feature that will take a certain segment of the recorded video to an on-board dual-layer DVD recorder. Let the viewer have the option of cutting out the commercials, starting the recording at a certain spot and ending at a certain spot, pick up recording when the actual program restarts, etc. Once you are all done, you have a DVD for your collection.

    The reason why this is a temporary save is that the generic models will immediately try to do the same thing. Hey, competition sux sometimes.

    I don't use my computer while I'm watching television. I do know that there are some people whose only access to the Internet, e-mail and the Worldwide Web are through devices like "WebTV" but I can't see that (small) market really hustling out there to get a TiVo. Bill Gates is correct; the television viewing experience is really different from that of working on a computer. The only possible likeness is playing games.

    Were TiVo able to enhance a game-player's experience, they'd really have something. Perhaps one possible enhancement would be the creation of a shared on-line experience for console games that do not allow networked game play, but that sounds unlikely to me.

    • I think that would not be a temporary save, but a long term save, if they could pull it off.

      Why? Because the content producers would scream COPY-RIGHT INFRINGEMENT faster than Tivo could build the first one - even though the VCR companies already fought and won that battle.

      TIVO's competition has strong connections to that industry, many of them are depenedent on them so would not follow too quickly, if at all.

    • Re:TiVo is a victim (Score:5, Informative)

      by Otto ( 17870 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:56PM (#10003149) Homepage Journal
      Want to (temporarily) save TiVo? Add a feature that will take a certain segment of the recorded video to an on-board dual-layer DVD recorder. Let the viewer have the option of cutting out the commercials, starting the recording at a certain spot and ending at a certain spot, pick up recording when the actual program restarts, etc. Once you are all done, you have a DVD for your collection.

      What, you mean like the Pioneer DVR-320-S and Pioneer DVR-520H-S?

      Okay, they don't have editing out commercials capability yet, and I doubt they are dual layer. So it's not totally there. But they do have Tivo+DVD Recorder.

  • Competition (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dfj225 ( 587560 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:20PM (#10002679) Homepage Journal
    This might be a little off topic, but I think its ok since it deals with TIVO's competition. I recently had Comcast digital cable installed and have been playing around with the On Demand feature. So far it seems like a promising feature, but needs much more content. The thing I like about On Demand is, unlike TIVO, is that I can watch something that didn't necessarily air yet (although in reality almost all of the content is previously aired stuff). I think that as soon as networks start to embrace On Demand type services more, it will be a big hit, making boxes like TIVO almost obsolete. I think what they should strive for now is putting up entire old seasons of television shows. I think it would be great to be able to watch any episode of Futurama when I want and for series that are still being run, they could add the new episodes a day after they air. On Demand should shape up to be a great technology, but right now it definetly needs better content. I can't really complain seeing how it comes free with any digital cable package. However, since they do use it as a major selling point I think Comcast should work with the networks to get better grade material on it. Once they do, I will never want to use a TIVO.

    • Re:Competition (Score:3, Interesting)

      by stratjakt ( 596332 )
      For On Demand to work, they have to eliminate the pay-per-view model. Comcast is unlikely to ever let that go, which is a shame.

      Forget first run movies, forget the hundreds of specialty channels. Give me the regular gammut of channels, put all the specialty stuff on On Demand. No need for 5 "home improvement" channels, if I wanted to watch some episodes of "this old House" where they tackled a project like my own, I could.

      But I never paid to watch it on PBS, and if I was going to pay to watch it, I'd o
      • Not everything on On Demand is pay per view. In fact, the only thing I have found so far that is PPV are movies, and even this doesn't have to be PPV, for instance, my package came with Starz for free, so whatever movies Starz is playing I can watch on On Demand for free. All of the normal television channels are free also. The only ones I have really looked at are Comedy Central and Adult Swim. You can watch whatever shows they have listed with no PPV fees. I think PPV movies mainly competes with vide

  • Whatever (Score:5, Informative)

    by OS24Ever ( 245667 ) * <trekkie@nomorestars.com> on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:21PM (#10002688) Homepage Journal
    The death of TiVo is greatly exaggerated. Time Warner offers the DVR in my area. I got it after using TiVo for 3 years. I sent it back within a week. The thing sucks.

    TiVo's wealth of advantages are it's software. Season Passes, rating show thumbs up/thumbs down getting other shows based on your ratings, etc. I've used them since 2000. With the recent price reductions in the monthly charge it's well worth it. I've got one on both TVs and use my wireless network to connect for the updates/transfer files between them.

    When I wanted to upgrade, I get a new one for $199 - $299 or whatever and keep paying the $12.95 for the first / $6.95 there after makes more sense than the $299 up front because I've yet to keep a TiVo for two years due to upgrades, change in whatever, etc.

  • List of patents (Score:4, Informative)

    by openSoar ( 89599 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:27PM (#10002775)
    Arthur Van Hoff's resume replete with list of patents here [strangeberry.com].

  • lots of patent.. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by joeldg ( 518249 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:36PM (#10002885) Homepage
    having a jillion patents means he is pretty aware of the legal system and that he in fact needs to protect is IP, in particular with which industry he is in.
    it is not necessarilly a factor in "genius" in my opinion, it is however a factor in "covering of the buttocks" in a hardened and cutthroat television device busines..

  • tivo's weak competition will save tivo (Score:3, Insightful)

    by jeffehobbs ( 419930 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:39PM (#10002913) Homepage

    TiVo has the mindshare and still remains the best of breed PVR out there, both in terms of technology and UI. Geeks might not think UI is important but it really is; jJust examine this account [boingboing.net] of what goes wrong when the technology is there (sort of) but the UI is not.

    ~jeff
  • Peer to peer distribution of recorded shows. It'll never happen though.

  • Once you are on digital TV, whether cable, satellite or broadcast (terrestrial), TiVo's inability to tune into one TV channel while recording on another is very painful. It's really the digital set top box's fault - in the UK, Sky+ is a TiVo like device from the Sky satellite TV service that has dual digital tuners - but TiVo really suffers as a result, particularly in households where one person likes watching live TV and the other person wants to watch recorded stuff...

    The lack of a wired link for remot
    • The DirectTV Tivo has dual tuners. You can watch one live channel and record another, or you can watch a recording and record two live channels. I have had my unit for 3 years, so this really isn't new. FYI, the HTDV TiVo has four tuners.

      What you are probably referring to is the TiVo stand-alone unit. The problem here is that TiVo has to encode the analog signal, something that the DirecTV or HDTV units (or your generic digital cable box) don't have to do. Dual tuners in these analog TiVo boxes would li

  • Ads (Score:3, Insightful)

    by dfj225 ( 587560 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @12:48PM (#10003019) Homepage Journal
    An interesting point that the article speaks briefly about is advertising and how advertisers hate Tivo because it can skip adds. The article mentions using Tivo's stat keeping to target a customer more directly and deliever relevant ads. I think this is really the future for advertising, not the static model of current television. For instance, I hate most adds because I'm not interested in what they are selling. I don't care if the newest Maxi pad can absorb a whole pitcher of iced tea, as a male I'm never going to need them. I often find car commercials very, very annoying, but when I was looking for a new car it was uesful to know what companies were having incentives. If ad companies could send me ads about products or television shows that I would be interested in, I think I might actually like to view them. Hopefully services like Tivo will help to bring this about.

  • there may be cheaper clones but... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by enrico_suave ( 179651 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @01:16PM (#10003395) Homepage
    The DVR that your cable company gives you might not be all it's cracked up to be... witness this rant from boing boing...

    I hate this digital video recorder: Scientific-Atlanta Explorer 8000 [boingboing.net]

    As much as I like making my own homebrew alternatives to TiVo, and think competition is a good thing... UI-wise TiVo still has the lead (hopefully they won't blow it)

    e.

  • Does TiVo need saving? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by YouHaveSnail ( 202852 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @01:23PM (#10003472)
    Does TiVo really need saving? It's the best PVR around... you plug it in, and it just works. TiVo gets it.

    I heard someone say recently that TiVo is the Macintosh of PVR's. They were talking about ease of use, not market share. As far as I know, TiVo is pretty much the Microsoft of PVR's in terms of market share. Or at least the Dell.

    If TiVo is having financial issues, I don't think it's because of lack of consumer interest or difficulty in selling units. It could well be due to regular, difficult, business issues, like having too many irons in the fire or having to worry about Microsoft's nefarious tactics. I'm sure that the cable companies are trying to horn in on TiVo's market with their various video on demand services, but they tend not to work as well as TiVo anyway.

    But really, TiVo is a great device/service that already does exactly what I want it to do. They don't need to turn it into something else.

  • Didnt know it needed saving??? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @01:41PM (#10003693)
    TiVo's tenacious market position and profit margins has been a frontpage business story for months now. Great product, yes, but they are in an awkward crossroads businesswise.

    I am very concerned that moving forward TiVO and HD will be largely incompatible.

    The movement of video enthusiasts to HDTV is a massive looming problem, as Tivo has little possibility of distribution of HDTV without a carrier deal, and their only existing one (DirectTV) is a tenuous one at best.

    It has already been regulated that HD signals will be flagged for copyright and all hardware manufacturers will be required by the FCC to honor it by not recording HD flagged with it, which could cast a long shadow over OTA HD recording.

    Cable companies are moving forward with making money off their own (likely lameass) HD cable box PVR solutions, and seemingly have no intention of opening their HD boxes to TiVo access.

    Strangeberry is a solution i search of a problem.

    The problem is HDTV. IMHO, PVR is more important than HDTV, but I sure am tired of watching TiVo programming on my 16:9 42" HDTV - its not pretty, even in Extreme Fine Quality mode.

  • Making Tivo a better PVR will save Tivo (Score:4, Interesting)

    by swb ( 14022 ) on Wednesday August 18, 2004 @01:43PM (#10003728)
    There's a ton of missing features right now on Tivo -- batch save to VCR, and so on.

    Instead of adding a bunch of "intraweb" integration, why not make it much more featureful at what it primarily is *for*?

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